Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and PM Bill English both face elections under a Trump cloud this year. PHOTO/AP
One good thing to be said about US President Donald Trump is that his election has heralded a new age of truth in diplomacy.
Meetings between leaders are usually followed by lengthy spouting of platitudes and flannel.
Any differences in opinion are gently alluded to or left behind closed doors.
Such subtleties no longer work against a President who says exactly what he thinks by Twitter to the world at large and in blunt terms.
So the leaders are starting to let rip in refreshing style.
This has been best exemplified by European leaders German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Merkel has repeatedly butted heads against Trump, most recently observing Europe could no longer rely on its traditional allies to the same extent.
Macron, at the G7 meeting, took the schoolyard approach of pretending he was about to greet Trump and swerving off at the last second to greet Merkel instead.
When he did shake Trump's hand, he squeezed the bejeezus out of it - later admitting that was a deliberate "moment of truth".
He followed it up with a series of pointed tweets in the wake of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, tweeting "Make the Planet Great Again" - a riff on Trump's Make America Great Again.
NZ Prime Minister Bill English has quite let the side down.
English's approach is to stay quiet and hope the US doesn't notice us until it's all over.
It didn't work - this week US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in town, the man whose life now consists of trying to translate Trump for sceptical world leaders and persuading them the US still warrants the label "leader of the free world".
English settled for pointing out this was not the first time a US President had been unpopular in New Zealand, nor the first time the two countries had differences.
He did not discuss Trump's style with Tillerson - not that he admitted anyway.
It was left to Labour leader Andrew Little to give Trump the tickle up. He did so with some aplomb, describing Trump as "idiosyncratic".
He said it was important to let the US know the potential damage Trump's "weird stuff" was having on US relations with others.
English's goal in this feigned indifference to Trump and his administration is two-fold.
The European leaders can afford to indulge in a bit of a burn.
New Zealand can not, as English pointed out when he spoke of the need to get reassurance the US would continue to provide economic and security stability in the Pacific.
English's second goal is to try and ensure Trump does not overshadow the campaign here.
English does not want to get caught in the trap of being asked to comment on Trump's every move so is either ignoring questions, pleading ignorance to the issues behind the questions, or giving bland answers in the hopes people give up.
His efforts will likely be in vain - Trump is a universal distraction.
Tonight's British election is a case in point - and English could learn a lesson or two from that.
Being nice to Trump might be for the good for the country, but it isn't necessarily good for one's own political career.
British PM Theresa May has come under fire for her own cordial relationship with Trump compared to that of the other European leaders.
For many, getting cosy with Trump is a far greater crime than running through the wheat fields - which was May's chosen misdemeanour when she was asked for the naughtiest thing she had ever done.
It is not the only reason Labour's Jeremy Corbyn is now coming at her like Kiwi in the 1983 Melbourne Cup.
But it is one of the factors that has turned what was assumed to be a clean sweep for May when she announced the snap election into a more marginal affair.
English has resisted extending an invitation for the Big Man to come visit, saying it was too close to an election.
There is some justification for that - Key was criticised in 2014 for having royals parading through the country in an election year.
But the bigger risk to English's hopes of winning his first election as National leader was that Trump might actually say yes.
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